MONTREAL – While Quebecor is ready and able to propel wireless telecommunications to new heights, the federal government stands in the way by hindering development, says Quebecor President and CEO Pierre Karl Péladeau.
In a speech Thursday to a Quebec Chamber of Commerce business outlook conference, Péladeau said (in French, of course) that other industrialized countries have seen the need to invest in new telecommunications technology, but more than a year after Ottawa raked in $4 billion from the distribution of new spectrum licences, the federal bureaucracy is erecting roadblocks to the development of a new generation of telecommunications infrastructure.
“Canadians deserve better,” he said. “They have the right to expect that the public authorities do what’s necessary to facilitate the rapid implementation of the latest telecommunications networks.”
The problem for companies such as Quebecor, he said, is that “too often, we bump up against a culture of adversity and bureaucracy when we should be finding catalysts and facilitators. It is very difficult to move towards rapid deployment of the necessary infrastructures when you have to constantly prepare argument after argument and defend them ad nauseum in front of the state’s servants who stand firm behind their procedures and dare not innovate or take a position.”
Péladeau said that Quebecor, with its enviable track record of staying at the forefront of the communications revolution, is ready to take mobile multimedia to a new level as a content and entertainment provider for Canadians.
“We’re aiming for the pole position, nothing less,” he said.
But while he applauded the federal government’s efforts to open up the wireless industry to more competition, he pointed his fingers at the telecommunication giants, which he did not mention by name, for continuing to hinder, “and in some cases, block any development leading towards quality and citizen satisfaction”.
“Monopoly in all its forms, obviously including the oligopoly – you know what I’m talking about – of wireless operators that prevails across the country and that causes us considerable harm.”
Péladeau said Quebecor will continue along its path of innovation, and next year will offer Quebecers a new generation of wireless service.
But he urged Ottawa to catch up with the rest of the industrialized world by creating the conditions for innovators such as Quebecor to provide the products and services consumers want.
Canada remains far behind other countries in wireless penetration, he said. As a result, only 56% of Quebecers have cell phones and among them, just 29% use it for Internet access. In terms of using the Internet for business transactions, most Quebecers use it to pay their bills; only 22% use it to make purchases.
He suggested that one factor is that Canada has invested so little in infrastructure development – three times less than France and Great Britain.
Glenn Wanamaker is Cartt.ca’s Quebec Editor.
